Survey: UK firms don't check ROI on Web investments

Despite growing boardroom pressure on IT departments to justify expenditure, 33 percent of firms have not measured the success of their Web strategies, according to a survey of Web strategy leaders in 120 UK organizations with an annual turnover of more than £100m.

Of the 64 percent who have assessed a Web project's ROI, 45 percent were unable to say what their ongoing investment would be, according to the survey by Akamai, a content-delivery service provider.

The survey reveals that firms have problems in assessing ROI because they use misleading measurements. For example, some firms building their corporate brands through Web sites were measuring the success of projects by the number of hits registered rather than any measurable effect on consumers' brand recognition.

Although 38 percent of Web leaders could not say when their consumer Web site would break even, 69 percent believe that cutting back further Web investment would damage their firm's business.

Akamai said that responsibility for Web strategy largely rested with marketing and financial directors -- IT directors accounted for only five percent of those with direct responsibility.

Ian King, general manager of Akamai Europe, said that the Internet was a corporate money pit: "British businesses are ploughing money into their Web presence without measuring what they are getting from it."

Akamai's findings follow a McKinsey Global Institute report, which stated that IT investment formed only a small part of the worldwide productivity jump from 1995 to 1999.